Hi guys

I'm struggling to get on board with the E Wing. I've seen the lists and the builds and the various combos but I'm still a little uninspired

I have an escalation tournament coming up and would love to use one. my first 60 points is starting with Chewbacca and a head hunter then I'm adding Tarn at 90.

At 120 I'm thinking about adding an e-wing and loading it out at the final step along with another pair of headhunters.

Without getting into the merits of escalation list building I'm struggling to see a use for any E Wing unless you build your whole list around it and then the whole list hinges on that one ship, which I'm not a fan of.

A knave with advanced sensors is 30 points. Does it really boring much more than a Blue Squadron with the same upgrade which is five points cheaper? Or is it really 9 points more effective than a rookie?

Give me some inspiration to use my new ship!

Personally I would tell you to fly your new ship give it a try over a rookie, here are a couple thoughts.

R7-T1 might be worth a second look.

R2-F2 might be amazing seeing you should be strafing with your E-wing, an having 4 agi is sick.

R2 would allow you to hard 2 and clear your stress after a Kturn, leaving 2 for a fire control system for target locks.

Ewing has a much better movement dial the a rookie.

In the end I know 9 points is just about a z but the extra agi is so worth it.

I like R7 astromech and FCS. Makes him a little harder to hit.

I haven't gotten to play test them yet but horn and kracken seem pretty neet together especially for hunting phantoms

I like R7 astromech and FCS. Makes him a little harder to hit.

I like this combo but its only gonna be effective on the higher PS ships.

R2-F2 and a stealth device could be pretty annoying. Even more so if you take Determination too

I do like this build:

Corran or Etahn w/ Advanced Sensors, Push The Limit, R2-F2, Stealth Device.

3 Ag + Stealth + R2-F2 + an evade/focus token. With Advanced Sensors he is getting to PTL and take a stress then wipe it off right away leaving his dial open for next turn. He has the option to TL + and Focus if the opportunity arises and both of these pilot abilities are great.

But its 44/47 points.

The sick part of my mind want to play wacky races with this guy and a Ex Handling/MF/C3P0 Chewie running round the map just soaking up firepower and dodging arcs but i'm not a huge fan of all those points into one ship. I suppose I'll just have to fly it and see how it goes.

I would count on building around it in most cases. It's going to be the lions share of your squad points so unless you intend to pair him with some Z-95's, you've got to create around him. That being said, although he's awesome in regular matches, when you have 6+ ships on the field Etahn is even better in this format. All of your 5-7 ships getting crits through is going to be very dangerous to deal with.

Edit for further build ideas:

Etahn you can run with nothing, but if you upgrade I'd do it defensively. Corran should get FCS and/or marksmanship, and possibly r7-t1 to look for range 1 double shots. The generics can pretty well do whatever the B's, and X's can do combined. In this case, I'd stick with a bare Etahn, and I'd try to get him in around the 3rd or 4th round.

I like R7 astromech and FCS. Makes him a little harder to hit.

R2-F2 and a stealth device could be pretty annoying. Even more so if you take Determination too

R2-F2 is nice but needs an action to trigger, which could have been an evade action or a focus - I suspect evading is better than adding a die unless you're expecting to take a lot of concentrated fire, which an agile fighter shouldn't.

I'd suggest:

R2 Astromech

Stealth Device

Sensor Jammer

Elusiveness

on a named pilot. R2 helps you shed the stress from Elusiveness, and you still have your action free to focus or evade.

I like R7 astromech and FCS. Makes him a little harder to hit.

R2-F2 and a stealth device could be pretty annoying. Even more so if you take Determination too

R2-F2 is nice but needs an action to trigger, which could have been an evade action or a focus - I suspect evading is better than adding a die unless you're expecting to take a lot of concentrated fire, which an agile fighter shouldn't.

I'd suggest:

R2 Astromech

Stealth Device

Sensor Jammer

Elusiveness

on a named pilot. R2 helps you shed the stress from Elusiveness, and you still have your action free to focus or evade.

I haven't played in an escalation event so my advice can only mean so much. But the 100 point list I used yesterday was:

Chewie

Etahn

2x Tala

That's it. No upgrades or gimicks. Just straightforward throwing crits at the wall and seeing what sticks (turns out a lot)!

I played against:

Rexlar w/ HLC, Predator

Omnicron Shuttle w/ Rebel Captive, Tactician, HLC, Adv Sensors

Black TIE w/ Wingman

Rexlar managed to flip 4 cards on Chewie and kill him off in the 2nd turn of shooting! I was pretty sure the game was over right then and there. But slowly the crits started to pile up and Rexlar rolled 6 straight blanks on his defense dice and was critted out of the game. One of the Talas actually finished off both the Shuttle and Rexlar. He survived with one HP, and Etahn ate the TIE for breakfast.

I definitely need to play the list more, but I think a naked E-Wing is a **** fine ship. Sure it can be decked out to the nines with all kinds of gear, but it doesn't NEED to be. X-Wings fly well without any upgrades, and an E does the same, it just has more options available to it.

Anyway, if you're having trouble liking E-wings because of their cost, start a list with a naked one and then see what that allows you to fit in around it.

I like R7 astromech and FCS. Makes him a little harder to hit.

I like this combo but its only gonna be effective on the higher PS ships.

R2-F2 and a stealth device could be pretty annoying. Even more so if you take Determination too

I do like this build:

Corran or Etahn w/ Advanced Sensors, Push The Limit, R2-F2, Stealth Device.

3 Ag + Stealth + R2-F2 + an evade/focus token. With Advanced Sensors he is getting to PTL and take a stress then wipe it off right away leaving his dial open for next turn. He has the option to TL + and Focus if the opportunity arises and both of these pilot abilities are great.

But its 44/47 points.

The sick part of my mind want to play wacky races with this guy and a Ex Handling/MF/C3P0 Chewie running round the map just soaking up firepower and dodging arcs but i'm not a huge fan of all those points into one ship. I suppose I'll just have to fly it and see how it goes.

44 points.. yikes. Is it really better than 2 rooks? It does definately look like one bad ship though.. I might have to playtest tonight just to see who comes out on average.

Anyways, I have this neat thread on rooks vs e-wings i started yesterday....

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/109848-rooks-the-cheaper-version-of-the-e-wing/

Fair warning: It's a full on rancor thread but still has some useful insight on both ships and might get a laugh out of you ta boot!

Last night I got to test Etahn. His ability should not be under estimated. If my opponent hadn't had shields (defender and bounty hunter) he may have thrown my E wing across the room. Targets without shields (either stripped or by nature) suffer if Etahn can see them as your entire squad starts tossing crits.

In a 100 point squad I say pair him with Biggs and add around that. In escalation he could make quite a hefty mid-late addition.

E-wings are hard to make work well for their points. Looking at just the stat line, their performance:cost ratio is about the same as the TIE Advanced. That's the negative.

Positives are:

• Really nice dial that can fly in formation with the rest of the X's / B's.
• System upgrade slot like the B-wing, and the droid slot like the X/Y.
• tons of actions to choose from
• best durability for any small base rebel ship (in the absolute sense, not based on cost)

It's basically a generalist jack of all trades, that can be outfitted in a variety of manners. Unfortunately the point cost for this versatility is extremely high. Too high by 2-3 points, based on my MathWing numbers and comparing to the B-wing.

Being PS1/3 is also a little wonky, especially since the dial encourages you to fly it with X's and B's.

25 points at PS2 and 27 points at PS4 would have made it a very good ship: equivalent jousting value as an X-wing, and overall points efficiency (including upgrades) just a little lower than the B-wing. Even 25 points @PS1 would be workable. But 27 points @PS1 is a very hard pill to swallow. It's simply not that much more durable or versatile than the B-wing to justify the added 6 point cost (PS adjusted).

Incidentally, all of the 3 agility ships with shields seem to have been over costed:

• TIE Advanced (4 points relative to a TIE Fighter)
• E-wing (3 points relative to the B-wing)
• TIE Defender (2 to 4 points depending how much to value the white K-turn)
• A-wing (2 points)

So, anyway, how to use the E-wing... my best suggestion is to stick Etahn with as many ships around him as possible to take advantage of his ability:

92 points (8 for tweaks)

Etahn (32)

5x Bandit Squadron (60)

My Ghostbusters

Knave+R3-A2

Blue Squadron

Blue+ Ion

Roark+Ion

Came in top 6 at a 32 player Regional. I beat the winning list as well (Chewbacca+4 Bandits) but timed out one turn before the killing blow.

I think Corran might be the best place to use Opportunist outside of a Wes list. Shooting at the End step almost guarantees you can catch some target without tokens, and it makes the double tap even more deadly.

Of course, Corran by himself is 35 points, so for Escalation he'd need to go into the list at the first stage. Not sure how effective he'd be with, at the most, 25 points of support.

Using the E-wing in escalation is tricky. The high base points cost means you either need to build your initial list around it, or add in a non-named pilot with essentially no upgrades in one of the reinforcement waves.

Since you are wanting to use Chewie, who is 42 points base, the first option is out. The second option is available, but, as you said, it's not clear how much a naked E-Wing adds to your fleet.

There is a third option, though, which might be worth trying. What if you drop the Z-95 in your initial list and roll with just Chewie?

So say your initial "fleet" is Chewie (42) + C3PO (3) + MF title (1) + Gunner (5) + veteran instincts (1). That's a total of 52 pts. You only have one ship, sure, but it's one of the tankiest ships in the game, and has good firepower, too. And with the points you save...

...you can add Etahn (32) with 6 points of upgrades, or Corran (35) with 3.

Not sure if this would be good or not. But it would be interesting.

I think Corran might be the best place to use Opportunist outside of a Wes list. Shooting at the End step almost guarantees you can catch some target without tokens, and it makes the double tap even more deadly.

Of course, Corran by himself is 35 points, so for Escalation he'd need to go into the list at the first stage. Not sure how effective he'd be with, at the most, 25 points of support.

Coran w/ VI

Bandit

Bandit

Not a bad starting point I don't think .

I kinda want to try this:

Etahn A'baht — E-Wing 32

R2 Astromech 1

Stealth Device 3

Bandit Squadron Pilot — Z-95 Headhunter 12

Concussion Missiles 4

Bandit Squadron Pilot — Z-95 Headhunter 12

Concussion Missiles 4

Bandit Squadron Pilot — Z-95 Headhunter 12

Concussion Missiles 4

Bandit Squadron Pilot — Z-95 Headhunter 12

Concussion Missiles 4

While this is far from an efficient list it is very fun.

Corran Horn

R2D2

Push the Limit

Fire Control System

Hobbie

R3A2

Flechette torpedo

Tarn

R7

Flechette Torpedo

It's a very combo heavy build, with way too much cardboard and still lacking in Pilot Skill, but it is really fun to run.

Corran Horn is very underrated. This is some build that can go town, and then run away.

Corran Horn

R7T1

Advanced Sensors

Outmaneuver

At range 1, he can almost kill Bwings on the double tap.

I tried Corran Horn with R2-D2, Shield Upgrade, PtL, and Advanced sensors the other day, and now my friends have banned that loadout (or any loadout with shield regen and shield upgrade) as a house rule.

Lets just say that with nifty barrel rolls before the movement and being able to recover shields and lose the PtL stress in the same turn is amazing, and you can slowly pick off his ships one by one as your opponent wants to more and more throw that E-wing and smug grin it has across the room. Its like everything the TIE advanced wanted to be, but... better.

I tried Corran Horn with R2-D2, Shield Upgrade, PtL, and Advanced sensors the other day, and now my friends have banned that loadout (or any loadout with shield regen and shield upgrade) as a house rule.

Lets just say that with nifty barrel rolls before the movement and being able to recover shields and lose the PtL stress in the same turn is amazing, and you can slowly pick off his ships one by one as your opponent wants to more and more throw that E-wing and smug grin it has across the room. Its like everything the TIE advanced wanted to be, but... better.

I tried Corran Horn with R2-D2, Shield Upgrade, PtL, and Advanced sensors the other day, and now my friends have banned that loadout (or any loadout with shield regen and shield upgrade) as a house rule.

Lets just say that with nifty barrel rolls before the movement and being able to recover shields and lose the PtL stress in the same turn is amazing, and you can slowly pick off his ships one by one as your opponent wants to more and more throw that E-wing and smug grin it has across the room. Its like everything the TIE advanced wanted to be, but... better.

I feel like that build would be better served with Etahn, but that could just be me.

It's not just you.

I think Corran needs to be built to modify multiple shots per round.